JavaOne 2009 started!
By: Stephan Oudmaijer, 2 June 2009
JavaOne 2009 has just started. The worlds leading Java conference will be held from 2-5 June in San Franciso (US). If you are interested you can follow the general sessions via the JavaOne homepage, due to the time difference in Europe you can watch and listen to the general sessions around dinner time. Check it out: http://java.sun.com/javaone/
I`ve just finished watching the opening session which contained a lot of promotion for JavaFX. Sony talked about Java enabling interactive Blu-ray applications. Verizon anounced a partnership with Sun for applications for their wireless network.
Larry Allison, CEO of Oracle, was the last guest speaker. He talked about how excited he was about the Oracle takeover of Sun and Java being the key platform for current and future Oracle (Fusion) products. He also mentioned that Sun and Oracle maybe hitting the mobile/nettop market and launching a Google Android alike platform.
I`ll be posting some JavaOne updates this week.
2 June 2009 om 8:27 pm
Hi Stephan,
Have fun in San Fransisco this week!
I’m interested to know the poor excuse of making the new G1 Garbage Collector available only to paying customers. Is this the decline of Java now that Evil Oracle has taken over?
Ah well, I could always go back to Smalltalk
(Not Scala, as that runs on top of the JVM, which is now Oracle’s. Brrr…)
3 June 2009 om 6:09 am
Hi Vincent, I wish I was in SF this week
Just following JavaOne from @ home…
3 June 2009 om 8:33 am
Is it valid to say that the G1 Garbage collector is in the first stages of it’s introduction – meaning that whenever it’s used in a production environment users should be aware that it’s indeed new and that to be able to obtain support they need a service contract? Maybe it is wishful thinking on my part, but it seems to me that Sun are merely making a point that it’s new technology that should not be used in a production environment unless sufficiently covered by support.
There’s is no indication (that I am aware of) that this will be an ongoing trend in the Java releases to come. If this were a trend that’s to continue in the future, this might be the time to start worrying…
3 June 2009 om 8:37 am
I’ve also heard they are updating the Collections.sort() for Java 7. I like that they don’t just think its ‘done’. They are now taking the sorting algorithm from Python and rewriting it, should be quite a bit faster and uses less space.
Has anybody at Ordina played with Google AppEngine yet? I’m currently developing a website for it, might do a writeup?
3 June 2009 om 9:24 am
I’m not sure that it’s decidedly a bad thing that Sun decided to only allow usage of the G1 Garbage Collector in a supported production environment. It’s freely available to everyone using Java, but if you plan to use it in an enterprise production environment it’s just a good idea to have a valid support contract. Sun can monitor any problems with their new garbage collector and improve it’s design accordingly.
I haven’t seen any indication (as of yet) that Sun will continue to pursue this approach in the upcoming Java releases – but that may well be wishful thinking on my part.
3 June 2009 om 9:45 am
Jarno,
Why would Sun make something freely available to everyone but limit the usage to officially supported environments? The sole reason I can imagine is to make a little money out of it.
And sure, Sun (thus Oracle) making a little money is healthy and good for them, but until now everything in the JVM/runtime has been free. So having Oracle cash in on the usage of a part of the JVM now, its a bit of a shock and IMHO not a good direction to go.
Also, with the whole Sun-Apache argument regarding Harmony (a free Apache JVM implementation), this might explain why Sun didn’t want another free version of the JVM, they want to start cashing in on the usage in the future!? But this might drive more free implementations, I can’t wait for crazy open source developers to develop their own G1
3 June 2009 om 10:38 am
Trouwens, dit is een erg goede link om eens rustig te lezen, alles over Exceptions in Java:
http://www.sanabel-solutions.com/content/view/21/
Waarom zijn ze er, wat mag je wel/niet doen… gewoon alles op een rijtje. Zou iedereen binnen J-Tech gelezen moeten hebben vind ik, gaat namelijk vaak fout in projecten.
3 June 2009 om 11:16 am
Roy,
Seeing as the G1 Garbage Collector needs to be enabled using the following command line arguments: -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+UseG1GC – I feel that this is indeed an experimental release of the garbage collector.
Let’s say you are using Java 6 in a production environment, and decide to enable this experimental feature and experience severe instability or maybe even worse. I can understand that Sun wants you to be in posession of a service contract to be able to fintetune and improve their new technology. This could also possibly prevent any negative press about the garbage collector as problems that occur with it are actively addressed.
Again: This may all be wishful thinking on my part. Let’s wait and see what their policy will be regarding G1 and Java7.
3 June 2009 om 1:51 pm
We should do some research before shouting anyway, in the last release notes Sun has already changed the ‘dubious’ sentence:
— old —
Although G1 is available for use in this release, note that production use of G1 is only permitted where a Java support contract has been purchased. G1 is supported thru Sun’s Java Platform Standard Edition for Business program.
———–
With:
— new —
G1 is available as early access in this release, please try it and give us feedback. Usage in production settings without a Java SE for Business support contract is not recommended.
———–
They now claim is all was a misunderstanding.
Oh, and the G1 is supposed to be new the default for JDK 7 next year, not being experimental anymore.
3 June 2009 om 8:29 pm
I don’t understand the problem people have with paying for software, especially when in production. You can play with the software as much as you want, but when you go live, you need to pay, just as you need to pay for the server, OS, electricity, etc… As long as IT projects cost many thousands/millions of Euros, paying for a state of the art (experimental) GC is not an issue IMHO. The rest of the JVM is still free.
It’s not that different from what others offer. For example SpringSource or Red Hat. The only differences are that a support contract is mandatory when using G1 and the only thing you get with a SS or RH support contract is support.
Apart from this, I don’t expect every Java app to become rocking fast with G1. It’s just an improvement of the standard CMS collector, which is currently not the default choice for server applications (that’s currently the domain of the parallel collector). G1 may change the public opinion about what collector is appropriate for what kind of application, I don’t know, but for some reason I don’t expect it will.
And, garbage collection itself is usually not the problem. The problem is bad memory management, which causes too much full collections. When you tune your memory settings and don’t have “memory leaks”, picking another GC should not improve anything. When one or both of these variables don’t apply to your project, I’m quite sure you’re in deeper shit than G1 can pull you out of.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t like these kind of innovations, but I see G1 more as an evolution instead of a revolution.
For some reason, we have a new hype every month and the whole community starts moving in that direction. But, as it turns out, most of these hypes die quickly. Maybe the Java community should grow up?
4 June 2009 om 4:32 pm
Flamebait…
I thought you were a Apache committer? Don’t let them read this!
4 June 2009 om 5:01 pm
I am an Open Source fan, but companies have business plans. And it’s very simple, JVM R&D is very expensive. Sun is famous for not making money out of good products (Java). It’s all very inventive and the community loves them for it, but at the end of the day, employees like to get paid.
So, I think it makes sense that Oracle want’s to make money with the Sun takeover.
And I think it may be good for the future of Java. I prefer an economical healthy company supporting Java (at the expense of paying for certain features in production) than a company that is about to become bankrupt.
As long as they can make money out of Open Source, companies will support it. Look at IBM with Eclipse or Oracle with MyFaces. But when it turns out that the Open Source projects only cost massive amounts of money, I expect the same companies to stop.